Page 24 of Safe With You

One less thing.

I barely made it two steps before someone else stopped me.

“Excuse me?”

I turned to find an older gentleman holding one of the event programs.

“Is there assigned seating?”

“No, sir. Sit wherever you’d like.”

He smiled.

“Then my wife will be happy.”

I laughed.

“Happy wife, happy life?”

“Forty-two years,” he said. “I’ve learned a thing or two.”

“I’d say so.”

He thanked me before heading toward the second row.

I watched him wave his wife over before turning back toward the welcome table.

“Hi, Mrs. Williams.”

She smiled. “You know I wouldn’t miss poetry night.”

“I’m glad you’re here.”

I smiled at Mrs. Williams before weaving around two college students who were debating the pastries.

“Get the lemon bar,” Maya called from behind the counter.

“Trust me.”

One of the girls laughed.

“That’s what you said last week.”

Behind them, the espresso machine hissed before another drink order was called out.

Someone near the fiction shelves burst into laughter.

A chair scraped across the hardwood floor.

“No, not there,” Naomi called. “If y’all keep moving those chairs, Luna’s eye is going to start twitching.”

“It already is,” I mumbled.

She grinned.

“See?”

I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t argue with her.